Wonderful news from Ilford for us film shooters!

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"Printing and processing of black & white film has shot up 45% in a year, signalling a resurgence of interest in traditional 'silver gelatin' prints, according to Ilford photo. 'There is still a passion about the darkroom', said Ilford Photo sales director Steven Brierly. Brierley admitted that use of home-based darkrooms among photographic enthusiasts 'has gone'. But, he added, interest from colleges is very robust--boosted by people enrolling for photography evening classes. Brierley said that the firm's sales of 35mm b&w film remain pretty stable, despite a slight overall decline in sales worldwide. Also, Ilford's sales of 120 film have rocketed 18% in value terms, according to Brierly, partly a result of a glut of low-priced second-hand rollfilm calmeras around 18 months ago."

I was in Freestyle Photogaphic in Hollywood yesterday, purchasing another 250-sheet box of Ilford's glossy paper, and there were numerous people buying film, paper, and chemicals for their darkrooms. I've also heard that their distribution center at another location in Los Angeles is experiencing a surge in sales from film photographers everywhere. So, despite what Brierly said about home-based darkroom use declining, there is nevertheless a huge amount of people preferring the darkroom experience (like me).
 
Printing and processing has increased 45 percent but 35mm film sales has remained stable. I'm not sure what that means. Were people not processing their 35mm B&W film before?
 
When there are two stores, and one closes, the other will experience a surge due to the overflow from people who used to go to the other store and do not wish to quit shopping. This is often misconstrued as a spike in overall interest, when it is merely a localized and temporary phenomena.
 
bmattock said:
When there are two stores, and one closes, the other will experience a surge due to the overflow from people who used to go to the other store and do not wish to quit shopping. This is often misconstrued as a spike in overall interest, when it is merely a localized and temporary phenomena.
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Bill, I agree with the localized argument. But we eventually cannot be sure if this is temporary or not.

Ilford is about as global as we get regarding film sales. And any word from them carries some weigh that can actually influence the trend to stay with film or even to "try" it out.

I'd like to think about this statement as one of the signs that the film photography market has started to stabilize. A mere miniature compared to what it was, but stable, not unlike the painting/sculpting supply markets.
 
Pickett Wilson said:
It's not stable with Fuji and Kodak, though. Both are continuing declines quarter over quarter.
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What is stable this days? Some year ago everyone believed DSLR is only way to get quality digital picture. Is this true anymore after small bodied-large sensor cameras started to appear? Everything is changing. I'm loosing my faith in DSLR as only type of capable digital device.
 
bmattock said:
I like it when the weatherman says it is not going to rain, but sometimes it rains anyway.
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"Don't need a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing"

Sorry, must be that shot of Dylan in my gallery from the late 70's, shot on B&W film processed at home, and recently scanned. ;-)

It is good to see Ilford at least commenting, that alone is a positive sign.

I phoned Agfa 16 years ago about a problem with their 120 APX, got a real person and everything, on the phone. He told me then that B&W represented much less than 1% of their products. It may be that B&W might surpass color negative sales, until color negative becomes "throw back".

He did say the company at the time saw it as a subsidy item for fine photography.

We "Band of Film Brothers" benefited greatly from the developments for the P&S market for a long time, now we may depend upon the kindness of the manufacturers.

I normally avoid cliches like the plague. :)

Regards, John
 
Perhaps more folks are migrating to Ilford products as Kodak continues to shrink. I know I am giving up on Big Yellow.
 
sepiareverb said:
Perhaps more folks are migrating to Ilford products as Kodak continues to shrink. I know I am giving up on Big Yellow.
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That's kind of what I said. And I also find it amusing when people think they're 'punishing' Kodak by not buying their products. That'll teach 'em.
 
I'm not sure but sales of 120 rocketing 18% in value terms may have a lot to do with them putting the price up by about 20% over the last year. Still good to see that their sales are at least fairly stable. I guess it's the amateur use of colour film going (still) down the toilet that defines Kodak's film woes. I predict that black and white film will out lasts colour as a viable medium for small-scale mass production. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Ilford eventually made Kodak's black and white films for them under licence and maybe Fuji's as well. I think both those companies will have factories far too big for their film prodcution soon enough and will close them down and either outsource or stop production. Ilford as a somewhat smaller player is probably better placed to survive.
 
I have no real way of knowing this, but I suspect neither Kodak or Fuji are putting any significant new investment in their film infrastructure. Probably Ilford, too. As such, so long as their film lines continue to produce some kind of profit, there's very little reason for the facilities to be shut down. The tricky part is predicting demand and keeping the raw material costs in bounds.

Obviously, however, there is a threshold below which film sales can't support such a legacy operation.
 
sepiareverb said:
Perhaps more folks are migrating to Ilford products as Kodak continues to shrink. I know I am giving up on Big Yellow.
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So will you be happy when Kodak stops making film and we have one less manufacturer to choose from? Less is not better when it comes to traditional silver-based photography.

As for me, I'll buy Tri-X and Xtol as long as I can.

Jim B.
 
This is clearly good news. Ilford admits that home darkroom processing is dead, but the resurgence came from schools enrolling people in photography courses. And that business increased. I don't think any of us expects this to mean that in two or five years everyone will be back in their home darkrooms, but it does support those of us who reject the absolutist argument that this medium will be dead and gone soon. Sometimes it is precisely the outdated, "retro" aspect of something that makes it jump in popularity. I stick to my prediction that Ilford and film photography will survive, albeit in a smaller niche market whose products will continue to cost more.
 
Kodak blew up the old kodak Park in Rochester - and built a new, state of the art film coating facility to replace it! The result so far includes the Tmax-2 400 - one of the best bl/w films you ever tried. Grain of a 100 iso film and far less problems with contrast and exposure latitude. Doesn't sound like they are "deserting" film users yet! Also the Ektar 100 in 35/120 - another "ground breaking" film when it comes to color negative quality.
Fuji is selling a lot of film, particularly in their home market of Japan. They where the main instigators of getting the Bessa III 120 folder in production - and looks at this camera as a gauge for 120 film demand! Of course there has been a drop in demand for film since the digital "tsunami" - but there are still millions of film cameras out there and film users.
It is slowly moving into an "enthusiast/amateuar" market - smaller, but less price sensitive than the commercial. There is a bit of "digital fatique" showing up. Many of us spend the day staring at screens - and dont want their photography to become an extension of the day-to-day job.
There is also the storage/retrival hassle with digital. At least with film you have a "hard-copy" that you can see - not an ephemeral collections of 0 and 1's stuck in a piece of machinery that keeps changing every 6 month.
Yes. our selection is getting more limited, prices are getting higher - but it is still there if we want it.
That Ilford's profits went up is no wonder - in Canada the prices has basically doubled on Ilford film - and that has had me shoot more Kodak/Fuji products - and stock up when the prices show up as "bargains" when it comes to paper etc.
 
I had to laugh yesterday. I stopped in at a local camera store & while most of the folks were selling digicams to the masses, I talked to the owner. Seems the biggest thing they have right now is Holga cameras. Can't keep up with demand for them or for 120 film. Sales of 120 has tripled and sales of 120 processing has gone up as well as big chunks of that 120 sales are C41. They still have a processing line that can print up to 6x7 negs like any other C41 neg so the college kids don't have to wait for a lab to do their ugly^h^h^h^hHolga shots.

But this is only anecdotal and Bill M. will be happy to keep on being angry every time someone posts something positive about film... / well only a little sarcastic...

And, yeah, film has gone through the roof. Nearly $8 for a 36 shot roll of Reala? Still, a lot cheaper than a 200ml tube of titanium white the last time I looked.

William
 
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